Should San Francisco youth ride Muni for free?

Students don’t learn if they don’t get to school. Youth from low-income families may not have the bus fare every day to get to class. This is a problem as the San Francisco public schools cut back on schools buses.
Last year, the Municipal Transportation Agency made reduced-fare bus passes available for three months. This year, in hopes of tapping regional transportation funds, the agency abandoned the reduced-fare passes for low-income youth and sought to allow all San Francisco youth to ride seven days a week, 24-hours a day for free. Tapping those funds rests on the MTA voting on whether it supports the idea of the free passes if the agency can tap regional funding. By law, the agency must notify the public that it will vote on a fare change 20 days in advance. To vote in March, the MTA must post the notice by Feb. 24, according to Mario Yedidia, director of the San Francisco Youth Commission.
Yedidia is worried that the SFMTA Board is delaying taking action at least until April, which could sink a year of work and affect some 47,000 youth Muni riders.
As of today, in the middle of the school year, there are neither reduced-fare passes for low-income youth nor free passes for all youth. This program, if approved, would go into effect for the next school year.
An investment in making sure students attend school is an investment in the future. What should we do for our youth here?